KR20050062859A - Method for positioning a monitoring camera - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed is a method for positioning a surveillance camera for positioning a gaze direction of a surveillance camera of a DVR device to a desired place. When the monitor selects the desired position by clicking the mouse on the screen, the coordinate shift amount is calculated from the center of the screen to the designated position, and the calculated coordinate shift amount is changed to the pan-tilt adjustment value of the monitoring camera. The pan-tilt adjustments are passed to the surveillance camera and adjusted so that the surveillance camera looks at the desired position.

Description

Positioning method of surveillance camera {METHOD FOR POSITIONING A MONITORING CAMERA}

The present invention relates to a system for monitoring an object from a remote location through a surveillance camera. More specifically, by clicking on a location to be viewed on a screen with a mouse, the surveillance camera at a remote location is driven up, down, left, and right through a position calculation. The present invention relates to a surveillance camera position control method for moving to a selected position at a time.

The method of recording on a tape, which has been used as a recording equipment of a conventional CCTV camera, is an analog type, which has the disadvantage of replacing the tape frequently, and has the disadvantage of inferior recording quality. Digital video recorder (DVR) systems are being rapidly replaced as CCTV cameras because they can process images digitally and continue to record without changing tapes. It also has a communication function, so you can monitor remote screens in your home, and it can also include many advanced features. For this reason, the DVR system has attracted much attention as the next generation digital surveillance equipment.

The DVR system generally includes one or more cameras for photographing a monitoring target, a controller for remotely controlling the operation of the camera terminal unit, and display means for outputting the image taken from the camera to a screen. The camera is equipped with a pan and tilt function to shoot an object while moving up, down, left and right. The pan-tilt drive of the camera is provided with a motor that is responsible for the pan and tilt drive respectively, and a separate gear device is installed in each motor to pan and tilt the support supporting the camera so that the camera is turned up and down or left and right. . Specifically, the camera support part performs a pan movement that rotates in the horizontal direction with respect to the support base and a tilt movement that rotates vertically, and allows the camera to photograph the up, down, left, and right directions. Such a system captures a number of surveillance areas to be managed by each camera and displays them on the surveillance screen of a monitor installed in an office.If necessary, the system records desired scenes on a digital recording medium such as a hard disk or DVD. Record it.

While operating a surveillance system, it may be necessary to change the camera's field of view. In this case, the monitor needs to be able to arbitrarily adjust the photographing direction of the camera through remote automatic control. The DVR system generally includes a mouse as one of the input means. In this case, the method of adjusting the direction of a camera using the mouse is known. 1A and 1B are diagrams for explaining existing methods of adjusting, using a mouse, the direction of a surveillance camera installed at a site while a manager views a screen from a remote location.

In the method shown in FIG. 1A, the screen 10 is divided into up, down, left, right, and diagonal directions starting from the center, and when the user clicks on a specific area with the mouse, the camera pan-tilts the preset movement amount. Way. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 1B, the up, down, left, and right arrows are arranged with the center of the screen 20 as a starting point, and when the user clicks the arrow in a specific direction with the mouse, the camera pan-tilts the preset movement amount. How to adjust the camera direction.

As described above, the conventional camera positioning method is inconvenient because the movement amount of the camera is already set in response to one mouse click. First, in the case where the gaze direction of the camera is to be greatly moved, it is inconvenient to make several clicks of the mouse. In other words, if the desired position is far from the center of the screen, the amount of camera movement is limited when the mouse is clicked once, so that the user can look at the desired position while watching the screen. You must continue to click the mouse several times with your hand until you get to the desired position. As described above, the conventional camera positioning method using the mouse can select only a desired direction of movement of the camera on the screens 10 and 20 by using the mouse. However, the position movement amount of the camera when the mouse is clicked once is set to a specific value. Since it is set in advance, it was troublesome to click the mouse several times when the moving position is far. In addition, the position movement amount is different according to the driving sensitivity of the camera. If the sensitivity is too large, fine movement control is difficult, and if the sensitivity is too small, the user has to click several times. .

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, and the pan of the surveillance camera is positioned so that the center of the surveillance screen of the surveillance camera is located at the position by clicking once on a screen with a mouse. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for positioning a surveillance camera that performs tilt drive control.

According to the present invention for achieving the above object, a surveillance camera positioning method for controlling the viewing direction of the surveillance camera through the remote screen, comprising: a first step of determining whether a specific position on the screen is clicked with a mouse; Calculating a vertical distance and a horizontal distance from a center point of the screen to the clicked specific position when the mouse is clicked; And a third step of performing pan / tilt driving control of the surveillance camera so that the clicked specific position becomes the center of the output screen of the surveillance camera by using the calculated vertical distance and horizontal distance. A method for positioning a surveillance camera is provided.

In the positioning method, the third step includes: converting the calculated vertical distance and horizontal distance information into a pan-tilt drive control signal of the surveillance camera; Transmitting the calculated pan-tilt driving control signal to the surveillance camera; And performing a pan / tilt driving control of the surveillance camera based on the pan / tilt driving control signal so that the direction of the surveillance camera is directed to the clicked position.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

2 is a block diagram of a system for implementing a method of selecting a desired point with one click on the screen by using a mouse and controlling the positioning of the surveillance camera so that the surveillance camera faces the selected point according to the present invention.

As shown, the system for implementing the method of the present invention includes one or more surveillance cameras 110 installed at the surveillance site, a screen 122 displaying an image taken from the surveillance camera 110, the surveillance Display means 120 for displaying the output screen signal of the camera 110 on the screen 122 so that the user can visually check, and a controller 130 for controlling the display means 120 and the surveillance camera 110 Doing. The controller 130 and the display means 120 are generally located at a remote location away from the surveillance camera 110. These controllers 130 and the surveillance camera 110 is connected by a communication means such as RS485 or RS232C, the communication according to the communication method of these means.

The system also has a mouse 140 as user input means. The mouse 140 is used as an input means for selecting a specific position on the screen 122 in the context of the present invention. The position selected by the mouse 140 on the screen 122 is input to the controller 130 to calculate an X coordinate value and a Y coordinate value based on the center point of the screen 122. The controller 130 calculates a pan-tilt control value (position change value) for pan-tilt driving control of the surveillance camera 110 according to the calculated XY coordinate value. That is, the amount of movement in the gaze direction of the surveillance camera 110 for calculating the calculated XY coordinate value to be the center point of the screen is calculated. The calculated pan-tilt control value is transmitted to the surveillance camera 110 by the communication means. The surveillance camera 110 performs the pan driving control and the tilt driving control based on the transmitted pan-tilt control value to change the center of the gaze direction of the camera to the point where the mouse is clicked.

In general, the surveillance camera 110 is equipped with a motor as a means for adjusting the pan-tilt, mainly a stepping motor (stepping motor) moving only a certain distance at a time is used. Therefore, the stepping motor is continuously driven by the pan-tilt control value so that the gaze direction of the surveillance camera 110 is directed to the selected position. As a result, the coordinates of the selection position coincide with the center coordinates of the screen 122. Various methods may be applied to the method of matching the selected position coordinates with the screen center coordinates, but it is preferably performed by PID (Proportional Integral Differential) control. To this end, the controller 130 is preferably provided with a PID controller.

The principle of redirection of the surveillance camera 110 will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 3A and 3B as follows. 3A and 3B are views for explaining a positioning method of a surveillance camera according to the present invention.

When the center point of the current screen 122 is referred to as center A as shown in FIG. 3A, when the user instructs to change the direction of the surveillance camera while clicking the position S with the mouse 140, the controller 130 changes the direction. Recognize the transition mode. The controller 130 uses center A as the origin coordinates (0,0) of the X and Y axes, and calculates coordinate values (α, β) of the position S selected by the user. The calculated coordinate values α and β are distances to be moved in the X direction and the Y direction of the surveillance camera 110. The gaze direction of the surveillance camera 110 is adjusted using the calculated coordinate values α and β.

The screen state after adjustment of the gaze direction of the surveillance camera 110 is shown in FIG. 3B. To this end, the moving position S selected by the user needs to be moved to the center coordinates (0,0) of the screen so as to become a new center point, Center B. Since the coordinate value of the selection position S is (α, β) on the screen 122, if the movement of -α in the X-axis direction (left and right directions) and -β in the Y-axis direction (up-down direction) is performed, the selection position S Will match. In order to obtain such a result, a process of converting the positional shift amounts α and β on the screen into the horizontal shift amount (pan drive amount) and vertical shift amount (tilt drive amount) of the monitoring camera 110 corresponding thereto is required. That is, the coordinate movement amount on the screen 122 is converted into the horizontal movement amount (pan drive amount) and the vertical movement amount (tilt drive amount) of the surveillance camera installed at a remote location, and then the surveillance camera 110 is used by using the converted movement amount. When the pan-tilt driving control is performed, the gaze direction of the surveillance camera 110 is directed to the designated position S. FIG. Converting the position movement amount α and β on the screen into the horizontal movement amount (pan drive amount) and vertical movement amount (tilt drive amount) of the surveillance camera converts the movement amount (distance) on the plane coordinate to the movement amount (angle) on the spherical coordinate. As the operation, those skilled in the art will be able to facilitate such a conversion process, so a detailed description thereof will be omitted here.

4 is a flowchart sequentially illustrating a method according to the invention. Hereinafter, the operation of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings and the aforementioned drawings. If the system is operating, it is determined whether the screen switching mode (step S1). To change the viewing direction of the surveillance camera 110, the user must first set to the screen switching mode. In this screen switching mode, the operation of changing the direction of the surveillance camera 110 to the point where the mouse 140 is clicked is scheduled. Therefore, after recognizing that the screen switching mode is set, the controller 130 checks whether the user clicks a specific point on the screen 122 with the mouse 140 (step S2). If the mouse 140 is not clicked, the process returns to step S1 above. If the mouse 140 is clicked, the coordinate values (α, β) of the selected point clicked with the mouse 140 on the basis of the center point of the screen 122. (Step S5) After calculating the coordinate values α and β, the controller 130 pan-tilts the surveillance camera 110 corresponding to the coordinate values α and β as described above. The drive control values, i.e., the horizontal movement amount (pan drive amount) and the vertical movement amount (tilt drive amount) of the surveillance camera are calculated (step S7). This pan-tilt drive control value is transmitted from the controller 130 to the monitoring camera 110 via a communication means such as RS485 or RS232C (step S9). The pan driving device and the tilt driving device (not shown) of the surveillance camera 110 perform the pan-tilt adjustment of the surveillance camera 110 according to the transmitted pan-tilt driving control value (step S11). As a result, even if a user at a remote place clicks a desired point on the screen only once, the shooting direction of the surveillance camera 110 is adjusted so that the position clicked on the screen is at the center of the shooting screen.

The method of the present invention may be modified by transmitting the pan-tilt driving control value calculated by the controller 130 to the surveillance camera using various wired / wireless communication means in addition to the communication means such as RS485 or RS232C. have. In addition, the method can be widely applied to applications that need to remotely control the viewing direction of a surveillance camera as well as a DVR system.

The embodiments disclosed herein are only presented by selecting the most preferred examples to help those skilled in the art from the various possible examples, the technical spirit of the present invention is not necessarily limited or limited only by this embodiment, Various changes and modifications are possible within the scope without departing from the spirit of the invention, as well as other equivalent embodiments.

As described above, the positioning method of the surveillance camera according to the present invention can be automatically changed to the clicked direction of the surveillance camera by a single click with a mouse at a specific position on the screen. The operation of the surveillance camera can be made much simpler and faster than the conventional positioning method, and as a result, it has the advantage of providing higher convenience of use.

Detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention will be made with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which numerals designate corresponding parts in the drawings.

1A and 1B are diagrams for explaining methods of adjusting a direction of a surveillance camera installed in a field while a manager views a screen from a remote location.

2 is a configuration diagram of a system for implementing a method for controlling a surveillance camera position by selecting a position on a screen according to the present invention;

3A and 3B are views for explaining the surveillance camera position control method,

4 is a flowchart sequentially illustrating the method.

** Explanation of symbols for main parts of drawings **

110: surveillance camera 120: display means

122: screen 130: controller

140: mouse

Claims (2)

In the positioning method of controlling the surveillance direction of the surveillance camera through the screen from a remote place, A first step of determining whether a specific position on the screen is clicked with a mouse; Calculating a vertical distance and a horizontal distance from a center point of the screen to the clicked specific position when the mouse is clicked; And And a third step of performing pan / tilt driving control of the surveillance camera so that the clicked specific position becomes the center of the output screen of the surveillance camera by using the calculated vertical distance and horizontal distance. Positioning method of the camera. The method of claim 1, wherein the third step, Converting the calculated vertical distance and horizontal distance information into a pan-tilt driving control signal of the surveillance camera; Transmitting the calculated pan-tilt driving control signal to the surveillance camera; And performing a pan / tilt driving control of the surveillance camera based on the pan / tilt driving control signal so that the direction of the surveillance camera is directed to the clicked position.